Bvlgari Creative Director Mary Katrantzou on her plans for her sophomore year, plus her artistic vision for Bvlgari’s recent showing at Paris Fashion Week
When Greek designer Mary Katrantzou was named the first-ever Creative Director of Leather Goods and Accessories for Bvlgari, most felt like it was a decision that just made sense. She tells me that there is a deep synergy between her work for her eponymous label and the work that her role at Bvlgari requires of her. After all, the foundations of her career were laid in textiles, not the rigidity of fashion school, and that has lent a certain artistic quality to her recognisable designs. Now, in her sophomore year at the House, she tells me about her plans for the future, what she thinks of quiet luxury, and her artistic vision for Bvlgari’s recent showing at Paris Fashion Week.
What surprised me most about Mary Katrantzou is that she began her career studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, but the segue to fashion was quick. Like students in all design fields, she sought inspiration from anywhere she could find it—she didn’t anticipate her pathway would be rigid at any point—and it was in London, a place she eventually called home for many years, on an exchange to Central Saint Martins, that she found her foray into fashion: the only course available to her that semester was textile design. Anybody else would have waited for the next semester and continued in their own field. ‘But for me, it was an opportunity to learn something new, so I took it on,’ she tells me. ‘I think every time you challenge your creativity in a different way, it gives you a more holistic overview of applied design. To me, being able to create a print was more about being able to tell a story; it was more about narrative.’ I think that speaks volumes about Mary’s creative prowess.
Narrative is something that has since endured in her work. Mary Katrantzou launched her eponymous label in 2008, which has since brought instantly recognisable designs to the fore—she has always had a bold affinity and a clear mastery of textiles, suggesting that it is just as much, if not more important than how a garment may be draped or cut. This curiosity in design has amassed numerous accolades, and garnered the attention of some of the most powerful names in the industry, Bvlgari being the latest—a brand that could easily sit in contrast with her own label but one that the designer says is more in sync than most. ‘I do think there's a certain synergy,’ she tells me, ‘and I don't know if it has to do with Bvlgari’s dual Greek and Roman roots, and the fact that I'm Greek, I don't know if it has to do with Bvlgari’s mastery of colour, which is also connected to my own sensibility but the approach is similar because we do have a lot of things in common.’ She tells me that even before joining Bvlgari, she felt connected to Bvlgari as a brand: ‘It's a brand that inspired me, a brand that I've loved since I was a little girl. That authenticity of connection was already existing.’ And how precious is that?
It is clear that Mary Katrantzou is someone who appreciates a creative challenge. She speaks of her excitement to take up the historic position as the Roman House’s first Creative Director of Leather Goods and Accessories, of how the projects she had worked with Bvlgari on previously had only affirmed the desire she had to join the ranks of the brand, and how it was a challenge that she could approach with confidence and curiosity, two characteristics that she—and I—believe have allowed her to succeed in this role, despite only being one year in. ‘I felt the responsibility,’ she confesses, ‘I hadn’t taken on that Creative Director role before. It's very different owning your own independent brand and being responsible for another brand, or, in this case, another category.’ However, she could also lean on her previous collaborations with the House and trust her creativity to know what she was doing. ‘It was a relationship that evolved naturally, and trust developed naturally. I think that's the most wonderful thing you can ask for when you work for a brand: to have the opportunity to study it, to understand it, to understand the company culture, and to understand the people.’
On the aforementioned confidence she felt at this pivotal point in her career: ‘I joined feeling excited, and I'm confident that it was the right time and that I'm the right person for the job. You can't always have that when you're joining another brand. There's always a period of—I'm not saying I don't doubt myself, of course I do— but having an underlying confidence is important when you're suggesting and proposing something new.’
And what Mary’s tenure thus far has marked is the very real beginning of something new. Her task is no easy one: to continue to evolve the House’s legacy of creativity and mastery, and expand its stronghold in the luxury leather goods market. I'm told that handbags here are quite different from what they might look like at another luxury fashion label: being a jewellery house, there is a laser focus on precision, craftsmanship, and all of the minute details—something that is very evident in Katrantzou’s works. ‘It's impossible to showcase how everything is made and the level of craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes into every bag and every accessory.’
This is because at Bvlgari, the conversation between jewellery and accessories is constantly in flux, and the phrase ‘good things take time’ has never been more apt. ‘The dialogue can take months,’ the creative director tells me—but she’s excited, not exasperated by it. ‘We need to understand how to translate the jewellery into the metalwork on the bag, which, in many cases, is also form-defining.’ But one could argue that it is this level of quality, craftsmanship, and constant conversation that distinguishes a Bvlgari bag as a forever piece: something you invest in, hold onto and adorn forever. This has been one of Mary’s big learning moments so far: ‘I think that was the biggest surprise for me—the time everything takes, the care, and also how much I’m learning in the process.’
However, for a brand that is so instantly recognisable for its visual cues, there is another challenge for the designer. How does she take that heritage and pay homage to it while trying to push beyond what we already know of Bvlgari? Serpenti, Tubogas, Divas’ Dreams: these are all utterly recognisable motifs—not logos, but just as well-known. And since Mary’s arrival, the House has already seen the introduction of another motif, Calla, inspired by the cobblestone streets of Rome. ‘Our logo is the symbol,’ she proudly professes. ‘That’s a completely different research that needs to take place to allow the bag to have something as special as the translation of our symbols and our jewellery.’
In fact, the amount of research that is required for a role like this would tire even the most studious. But Mary is enamoured by it: she has access to a centuries-old high jewellery archive and uses that as a building block for her designs. Most seasons, she is discovering new silhouettes, works of art that have long been lost to the archive—an archive, I’m told, that is exquisite. I, for one, am curious to see how she evolves them.
It’s fair to say that with the initial celebrations of her appointment waning, everyone is excited to see what the future holds for Mary Katrantzou. She’s now in her sophomore year, and I’m curious to know what this will bring and how she will continue to take this learning and evolve what she is doing with Bvlgari’s approach to leather goods. She tells me that from here on out, it’s about probing deeper into the identity we think we know. ‘The first year was all about Calla and introducing a pattern that can act as an identity alongside Serpenti,’ she reflects. ‘The second year is more about looking at the pillars that exist within the category: the snake as a pillar and launching Cuore [the heart] as part of the Serpentine line, and then also building a second pillar that is, let's say, maybe inspired by our work on the Calla pattern, or the Divas’ Dream pillar.’
Naturally, as almost all conversations in the industry do these days when talking about design, we gravitate towards the big topic: quiet luxury. I’ve long felt that Bvlgari is perhaps one of the original purveyors of quiet luxury, something that the House has embodied for over a century in a way that doesn’t quite feel as rigid as it can in the modern definition. It seems that Mary has had similar thoughts about this and what it means for Bvlgari and her scope there. ‘You might not think that it's quiet luxury because Bvlgari is about being bold and audacious and daring,’ she shares. ‘However, not putting a logo on your bag at the time that most luxury houses have massive logos, to me, is exactly what luxury is about.’ For Bvlgari, this stems from Mary’s ambitions to translate the House’s jewellery into leather goods and accessories: jewellery that has typically never been defined by a logo, but rather those recognisable silhouettes and motifs. ‘Your symbol is your logo, your arc on your history, your narrative,’ she reminds me.
As far as plans for the season ahead are concerned, when Mary and I speak—her from her family home in Athens, I from New Zealand—all thoughts are on Paris Fashion Week. This will be the second time that she shares her work at the foremost fashion event (and by the time you are reading these pages, the whole world will have seen it, too). I was fortunate to see a preview of some of the hero pieces; it feels like the execution is as close to everything Mary has been dreaming of. There is a bold new adoption of bags that are definitively day—the Marquise—and definitively night—Serpenti Forever, taking out the transient blueprint of day-to-night bags that the House has become synonymous with—all of which will soon be available at Bvlgari’s 75 Queen Street flagship. There is creative manipulation of time-honoured shapes. There’s excitement, there’s refreshing perspective, and, of course, there’s a little bit of quiet luxury.
I asked Mary how she thinks this collection represents the current state of fashion. ‘I think the most relevant conversation for us is to create unique pieces you cannot find anywhere else,’ she shares. ‘It's a time when you see so many brands resembling other brands. For me, what's very important for Bvlgari is that the creativity is unique; that you're buying a piece you cannot find anywhere else. That is the most important thing.’ It’s a sentiment that feels authentic, both to the brand and the creative director’s vision. ‘It’s important that there's a story that the woman looking at a piece can connect to emotionally. Because we don’t need all the bags we buy—something must draw us in.’
After all, it is undeniable that Mary Katrantzou’s perspective is unique: it’s the reason why she received the call up to the coveted position in the first place. But if the foundations she laid in her first year, and the blueprint we’re beginning to witness for her sophomore year are anything to go by, I would say that the industry can expect something truly historic from her tenure. I, like many others, am waiting to see exactly what brilliance comes next.
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